From the MIAT I wander into other parts of Ghent’s historic center. It is now 1pm so instead of focusing on stuff like this…

 

I’m eyeballing this (isn’t that a great name for a restaurant?):

 

But Italian wins out today so I grab this table,

 

and my feet thank me while I look out of this window,

 

waiting for this to arrive:

 

The food is nothing to write home about, and the staff would speak only Italian to customers regardless of the language you speak to them. Many customers comply by speaking right back in broken Italian. It’s a riot.

Now with fuel in my belly, I brace myself to fight the tourists at some of the more popular corners…

 

except…where are they? What happened to the hordes of people I was expecting?  Oh, here they are:

 

I duck out of the crowds and walk in the opposite direction from the tourist traps:

 

It’s around here or thereabouts that I blend in with the locals and have my sorbet dessert–or is that dessertS?

 

Meet me back here tomorrow and let’s go see the prettiest places this town has to offer.